The present invention relates in general to a document filing system and, more particularly, to a system for indexing/filing document information and editing it to satisfy the various needs of a user.
A computerized system for electrically indexing and filing document information and automatically retrieving desired document information is becoming increasingly significant in effectively storing in a small space large numbers of documents handled on a daily basis. According to a conventional document filing system of this type, in order to obtain a desired document from filed documents (e.g., publications, patent documents or the like) indexed and stored in a large-capacity memory (e.g., optical disk) in a predetermined data file structure, character index data corresponding to the desired document is entered at the keyboard, so that the system can automatically search and retrieve the desired document. The conventional document filing system of the type has an advantage in that it comprises a large scale fixed information system created in such a manner as to allow many users to utilize information, which is freely available to the public. However, the information stored in such a system cannot be sequentially edited to satisfy individual needs, thus failing to provide system flexibility.
Consider the daily document filing performed in relation to individual workers in offices or the like so far as daily clerical work is concerned. In this case, each office worker has a desk with drawers, a filing cabinet and the like. In general, the worker files documents created in the progress of his or her work in a filing space consisting of the desk and filing cabinet and the like in accordance with his judgment. Various types of documents are handled in the performance of tasks assigned to the individual workers, and are subjected to changes in values and filing methods in the progress of the assigned tasks and upon reorganization of a company. For this reason, the information filing concept under the above situation must be one which can handle such changes. However, the conventional document filing system cannot be properly used in the above-mentioned case.